It’s natural to be angry with a person who hurts us. If the pain caused by someone’s actions is too severe, one might even consider punishing them. But how appropriate is it to condemn or punish an entire community or family for one person’s mistake? Here are some examples from Srimad Bhagavatam to explore more on this topic.

There comes a time, sometimes regularly, where we may feel, Oh, Krishna. I can’t do this anymore. This ‘this’ will be different for everyone. It happened to Arjuna in the Gita – he wanted to give up, not to fight, and go off to the forest to be alone. He did not want to deal with people and life’s problems. He told Krishna: I’m not fighting, I can’t do it, I can’t see the point, better if I don’t act and move to the side. If it can happen to Arjuna, who had ev...

The phenomenon of something changing from material to spiritual is an extraordinary one, but it is something we as devotees are involved in daily—often several times a day. It happens when prasadam (unoffered food) becoming prasadam, or food sanctified by the Lord. When I was a new devotee in Montreal, we arranged a program that was to be given on campus at McGill University. The leaflet advertising the program read, “See matter transformed into spirit before you...